Stone and his producing partner Moritz Borman have bought the movie rights to Kucherena's novel and will also adapt The Snowden Files, a book about Snowden and the NSA scandal written by Luke Harding.

The director said in a statement: "Anatoly has written a 'grand inquisitor'-style Russian novel weighing the soul of his fictional whistle-blower, Joshua Cold, against the gravity of a '1984' tyranny that has achieved global proportions.

"His meditations on the meaning of totalitarian power in the 21st century make for a chilling, prescient horror story."

Kucherena added: "The more I engaged in the Edward Snowden case, the more I was impressed by his story. To understand Edward and his actions, I had to 'tune to his wavelength' and try to balance between the rational and intuitive perception of his world.

"Having experienced these incredible sensations, I realized that I had to write about them, but only in the form of a novel that would not claim any sophisticated philosophical conclusions."

Stone's previous films include Platoon, JFK and W. He has also made documentaries on Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and a TV series called Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States in 2012.